


Hanakotoba: Gardenia

by Cinicalamente



Category: Dr. STONE (Anime), Dr. STONE (Manga)
Genre: Chrome i love you but, Fluff, Idiots in Love, Language of Flowers, M/M, OOC maybe, Traslated story, blushing Gen, blushing Senkuu, hand-holding, not english native so don't hurt me, sengen, soft, stupid cotton candy, talks about the future
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-02
Updated: 2019-09-02
Packaged: 2020-10-05 00:33:29
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,443
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20480033
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Cinicalamente/pseuds/Cinicalamente
Summary: "Hanakotoba (花言葉) is the Japanese form of the language of flowers. In this practice, plants were given codes and passwords. [...] These are meant to convey emotion and communicate directly to the recipient or viewer without needing the use of words."Gen didn't know what he felt for Senku, so he let the nature talk for himself.





	Hanakotoba: Gardenia

**Author's Note:**

> Disclaimer: English isn't my native language so be soft with me but let me know (if you want) what I have to correct. I would really appreciate it. Thanks to Google-chan too, blame it for wrong data.  
Spoiler Alert for only anime watchers! Manga readers, please enjoyed it.  
This story hasn't a set but if I have to choose... it's after the cotton candy machine and before the battle against Tsukasa. Also, forgive me if these two are a little ooc.  
Italian language for this fanfiction is also available, check my profile, if you need it.  
SenGen fandom, i love you!
> 
> Kuchinashi - Gardenia jasminoides: in accord to Hanakotoba, this flower means secret love. On an italian language of flowers site this flower is the symbol of sincerity in love, and purity but also seduction.

It had become a custom by now. After dinner, a few hours before going to sleep, Senkuu and Gen talked about whatever was on their mind privately. They were the only ones in the Ishigami Village to have been petrified and to have lived in the world before the great catastrophe. They both felt free to refer to video games and other things of their time without having to explain what they were. It was a nice feeling, like when you were in an another country and finally you met someone that could speak in your native language.

Senkuu would not admit it out loud, but it was good for him to talk about the past or what he was proud to have done. It was true, he could only share his experiments or a few sentences from the books he had read with transport until he absorbed its notions, but to his interlocutor these arguments did not seem to bother him. 

Also Senkuu knew he was an open book for Gen. It had been months since they first met, and he was still amazed at how the Mentalist could read people, almost as if he had an instruction manual on the functioning of human beings and their psyche. However the same was not for Senkuu. He could try to analyze his behavior, but in the end Gen would always protect his secrets, like the moon that has a side that never shows to anyone.

Gen instead was working hard to get everyone to accept him, even if they kept looking at him as a stranger. He couldn't blame them, after all. Despite the hard work for the Kingdom of the Science, he liked being in the Village. He often did magic tricks to entertain children and the elderly, and no one had ever tried to kill him, so he could say he was satisfied.

Then there was Senkuu.  
He would listen to him for hours, he loved to see how passionately he talked about science or anything else. Senkuu could be very honest and not able to lie to get what he wanted, but Gen could see how much that guy believed in himself and at the same time appreciated everyone's collaboration. He was a leader, not a dictator. He wanted to save the world and, at the same time, leave it to others for fear of ruining it.

Gen liked Senkuu. He didn't know yet in what terms but the more he looked at what Senkuu had built out of nothing and the more he found himself blushing. Spending extra time with him hurt and made him feel good at the same time. Whenever he heard him talk about his childhood and the experiments he did when he was only in elementary school, Gen could not help but wonder how their lives would have been, if they had known each other before. Sensing Senkuu's enthusiasm for concepts that he now knows all too well was like when a child discovered how a switch worked and was convinced he could dominate the light.

Lost in his considerations, he almost didn't hear Senkuu sit next to him on the lab floor, where they met every night and then went to their own sleeping places.  
"Today you disappeared of a sudden," Senkuu told him, and only then did Gen turn to look at him. He opened his mouth to speak but closed it again, not knowing how to say it. He shifted position and knelt before him, raising his right arm and stroking Senkuu’s left cheek.

Gen’s heart was pounding against his ribs as he touched his ear with his fingertips. Senkuu was still. He immediately lost his astonished expression at the contact, now he just stared at it and waited. He didn't know what he was doing, but he had no reason to oppose his delicate touch.

Gen's hand was warm and his narrow fingers - now slightly rougher because of the calluses for his hard job - ran on Senkuu’s skin until he reached the scars left by the petrification on his eyebrows, then returned to the tip of his ear, now reddened.  
Senkuu's cheeks were also redder than before.

Gen pulled out of his sleeve and passed a white flower with wide petals behind the scientist's ear. He handed it to him.  
"Suika-chan accompanied me to her favorite flower field… I needed it," he explained quickly, placing both hands on the floor. The flower had fallen in front of Senkuu.  
The boy settled down, assuming the same position as Gen and gently picked him up, counting its petals for a moment. He could not remember the name of that flower, his color was misleading him.

"Senkuu-Chan..." Gen whispered but didn't have the strength to continue the sentence. Senkuu didn't strain him, didn't try to guess what he wanted to tell him. He just stared at the flower in silence.  
"Next time I warn you, when I will walk away..." he said finally, arching forward, letting his hands touch Senkuu's. "Sorry!" he snapped, reflexively pushing his arm away but Senkuu stopped him, squeezing his hand around his wrist. The flower fell to the ground again.

"Don't worry," he said but didn't let go. Gen wanted to smile for his sweet gesture but he felt Senkuu's hand around his wrist, and every attemps to make any coherent thoughts was impossible. Senkuu, on the other hand, had looked away as if he were embarrassed by his own nerve.

"Can we... Can we lie down for a moment? My legs hurt in this position!" Gen proposed, reluctantly escaping from his grip.  
He opened his mouth and breathed. The knot that had gripped his throat for hours was still there, but he tried to smile as he settled himself on the floor. Senkuu did not protest, did not ask for explanations. He would not have been able to formulate the questions and the other lacked answers for now.  
He merely copied his movements and lay down on his back next to him.

Gen's eyes narrowed as he realized that from that position they could see part of the moon outside the window. He wondered if he should point it out to him.  
Senkuu turned to look at him, but Gen didn't notice, he put his hand on that of the Mentalist, who gasped silently.

Gen turned immediately and caught his eye. He didn't even know how he had managed not to blush until then, but he could no longer restrain himself. Senkuu's eyes were fixed on him, he had no trace of annoyance, irritation, sarcasm or disinterest on his face. He looked at him with a sketched smile that softened his features. Without further reflection, Gen twisted his wrist and matched the palm of Senkuu's hand with his own. The other boy didn't find it a risky move, he let him do it, as busy as he was looking at him.

"The scar you have... That one on the cheek," Senkuu began but stopped to catch his breath as if he suddenly couldn't breathe at all. "In the future, when you come back to work as a Mentalist on TV... Won’t it bother you?" He asked, looking away at the end.

The future.  
Gen had stopped thinking about the future. He had faith in science and in Senkuu, he had no reason to believe that the future would not be better and an evolved version of the Stone World. The scar, however, if he could have chosen, it would not have been part of that scenario. It often itched and was certainly deeper than the ones Senkuu had on his forehead. But he was so happy to have been freed from the stone. He was so happy to hold his hand tightly around Senkuu's one.

"No, I never thought about it," he finally answered, turning on his left side and placing his cheek on the floor. He looked up slightly to stare at Senkuu's face better. The light of the fire fortunately did not hinder his observation. But his position instead made his blonde hair fall in his face and had to move them with his right hand before it could interrupt that moment.  
He wondered why Senkuu had asked that question... maybe he thought having a scar made you uglier? No, Senkuu hadn’t these prejudices.  
"Your... your scars are... beautiful," Gen admitted, staring at them once again.

Senkuu looked up as if he wanted to check out them or even move his free hand to touch them, but in the end he just grimaced.  
"Kukuku... They look like two horns!" he giggled, finally confessing what he had thought of his own scars from the first time he had seen them in the reflection of the river.  
"It's not true!" Gen retorted promptly, unable to keep from laughing. Senkuu smiled in noticing Gen laughing but he didn't realize it again.

They still held hands, the flower still lay forgotten on the floor beside them.

When Gen's laughter faded and became confused with the voices of the villagers who were now preparing to go to sleep, Gen did not want to be separated by him but could not say it.

Yet lying to him was as natural as breathing. Although to be honest at that moment his breath was not regular. Senkuu looked at him with his lips closed in a kind of grimace that Gen found adorable and urged him to approach Senkuu, even though he felt an impulse inside him not to. Between the two impulses, the first won. The stronger of the two. At that moment, however, Senkuu raised his own arm and Gen's to the ceiling.

"You know... since the Roman times..."  
Gen narrowed his eyes, wishing he could return a few seconds before the unwanted history lesson.  
Senkuu didn't stop though. He twisted his wrist and raised his left arm to indicate a particular finger on Gen's hand. The ring finger.

"They believed that a vein started from here..." he explained, pressing the tip of his finger along the length of the ring finger of Gen's left hand "... And crossing the hand, the wrist," he listed, along the path described with the fingertips on the clothes of Gen who jumped at the contact but did not oppose it. "... The forearm, hollow of the elbow," he went on with the words and his fingers on the same way. "The arm... according to the ancients and still today in the West, this vein, the only one to have a similar path, from the left ring finger reaches the heart," he added and placed the palm of his hand to the chest of Gen. Senkuu stopped, staring into the eyes of the other boy who in turn did the same thing with those of Senkuu. Only when they felt their neck muscles pulling for the uncomfortable position did, they looked down. "For this reason, when we talk about the promise of marriage or love, the ring is worn on this finger," the scientist concluded with a whisper.

Gen could not say anything.  
He couldn't say anything. If he had spoken, perhaps Senkuu would have understood that he had done something totally illogical and romantic.  
But his heart was beating faster.  
He wondered if Senkuu could hear it through the fabric of those clothes he would rather not have on him at the time. He felt the warmth of the other next to him, his touch still present. He couldn't help but look at the details of his thin face, his lips now parted, his eyes fixed on him, the expression devoid of malice. Being next to Senkuu made him both happy and agitated and even though he hadn't had many experiences, he had no doubts about what he was feeling at the time.  
So when you fell in love, that was what you felt. The books did not give justice to the swirl of emotions that shook the soul of those who realized they had fallen in love.

He hoped that Senkuu hadn't said anything else because he certainly couldn't have listened to him. Gen ran the tip of his tongue over his own lips to moisten them, and though he tried to move, he didn't really want to do it.

He almost seemed to be reading it in his mind, when Senkuu shook his right hand in Gen's almost as if to confirm to him not only that he was still there, but also to feel every beat faster, and perhaps even to know that he was the cause. But he removed the one he had placed on his heart.

"Will you ever wear a ring there?" Gen asked breathlessly. He swallowed and was embarrassed when he realized that his hands - including the one still tight in Senkuu's - were sweating.  
Senkuu, however, did not leave it. He lay on his back to look at the ceiling, putting an end to that prolonged eye contact. His chest rose and fell slowly, sharing with Gen the impression that it was difficult to breathe.

After a few minutes that Gen spent with his eyes closed to calm down and try to use logic to forget that he had understood his feelings, Senkuu left his hand to be able to push himself and sit cross-legged. He put his hand to his ear as he used to do and looked ahead.  
"Well... Who knows... Maybe a person I might like is in this universe. Maybe one day I'll have time to enjoy something as illogical as love. And You?"

"I will wait for that moment," replied Gen without hesitation, sitting himself in the same position as Senkuu. "I mean the ring moment... I have to find the right person first."

Senku raised an eyebrow, not holding his curiosity.  
"If you came back to Tsukasa, you could resurrect... wait, what was it? Was an Idol's Harem, wasn’t it?"

Gen went pale.  
"But no, what a harem! As if I could handle it! Absolutely not!" he exclaimed, waving his arms. The wide purple sleeves fluttered, following his clumsy movements.  
Damn Senkuu who remembered everything! Gen did not even remember what he said when they first met. The Mentalist, to make shift his attention, had an idea.  
He leaned forward and, pulling on his knees, came up to stand between Senkuu's legs. With both hands he grabbed his face and the scientist opened his mouth in surprise.

"When I want to tell the person with whom I want to share the rest of my days, I will caress her face like this so I can hold her and look her in the eyes," he explained. After a few minutes, he lowered his forehead and held it to Senkuu's, who once again did not stop him. Both of them closed their eyes at that moment. "Then I'll let our breaths merge, let our hearts synchronize because I want this, I've always dreamed of something so romantic. Everyone deserves to try something crazy like love. I've always been alone. People excluded me. I had no friends, just colleagues. I never had anyone to worry about me, except my parents when I was paid for jobs. For once I want to be loved and I want to love, that's why..." he confessed aloud for the first time what he had suffered to a person who knew and felt really light. He trusted Senkuu as person, not just Senkuu as scientist, and it frightened him.  
But trust was an indispensable element for human relationships, after all.

He fell silent, feeling his lips pinch and Senkuu's breath against his mouth. One movement would be enough and he wouldn't talk for following a few minutes or he would ruin everything. 

"That's why when I'm ready to tell the person I want to spend the rest of my life with, I'll look into her eyes and tell her that even though I'm not the perfect person and that is statistically impossible to meet our own soulmate in the lapse of time of average human life and that most likely we will be two to learn how to live as a couple, I will tell you: I lov..."

"Guys, do you want some cotton candy? The kids asked us and how could we say no?" asked Chrome, entering the room with both hands occupied.  
Senkuu and Gen walked away at least thirty centimeters. Chrome didn't notice them as he was busy checking that he hadn't touched anything with that sticky sweet. One was already half eaten while the other's stick barely supported the weight of what appeared to be a double ration of it.

Gen put his hand to his chest in an attempt to calm himself and quell his growing anger. Everything was going pretty damn good. Too good to be true.

"Cotton candy?" he asked in astonishment, realizing every second that passed how severe Chrome's interruption was. He was almost in Senkuu's arms, he was about to tell him that he loved him, albeit with an indirect confession, perhaps Senkuu would have pushed him away, maybe he would have kissed him.  
He would very probably have felt the lips he had set for hours on his own and only because of Chrome's bad timing nothing had happened. "Cotton candy. You wanted to bring us some cotton candy. Really cotton candy? Now?"

Chrome approached the two and handed the cotton candy to Senkuu who did not move a finger to pick it up and who merely frowned at it. Gen blushed at this reaction. He also wanted to continue.  
"Yes! Think about it, even Kinrou ate it!" he said, unable to capture the atmosphere in that room. "Can you think of that? For once he didn't say," he summarized, setting himself up as the eldest of the two brothers at the village guard, "The rules are the rules."  
However, his pale attempt at imitation made no one laugh except Chrome himself who took another bite of his sweet. When he finished chewing, he realized that he both hands are still occupied. "What did I do? Didn't you want your cotton candy?"

"Cotton candy," Gen repeated again as he got to his feet. "I better go or it really ends badly," he commented in a voice so low that only Senkuu could figure out what he had said. Then the other boy got up and grabbed for the Gen wrist. The Mentalist stared at him, unable to figure out what he was going to do. Senkuu with the other signaled to Chrome to pass him the almost deflated cotton candy.

"Thanks for it, Chrome. Join the others, we are good here!"  
Gen glowered at the entrance to the laboratory and only when Chrome went out, he did turn to Senkuu, who took a piece of cotton candy and held it out before the Mentalist's mouth.

"Say Aaaah," he imposed.  
There was no sign of embarrassment, perhaps Senkuu had not noticed what he was doing. Gen blushed and opened his mouth, trying not to panic as he was using his fingers to bring something to his lips. His fingers would have touched his mouth.  
He let himself be taken in, enjoying the fleeting touch of Senkuu's fingers.  
While Gen chewed, the scientist tore off a piece and ate it.  
They continued to eat in silence, pruning the pink cloud.  
"Thanks, I'm sorry I didn't finish that speech."

Senkuu, intent on staring at the sticky sweet, nodded.  
"You will have time to tell me… I mean, to tell me what you will say to the person you are interested in."  
"Yes, absolutely!" Gen agreed and took a piece of the cotton candy. They sat down again, the flower was next to Senkuu, almost as if it didn't want to lose sight of him.  
They were sitting where Gen had barely confessed to him how he felt, where he had first realized his feelings.

"The moon is beautiful, tonight," Gen exclaimed, determined not to have to waste even the most stupid occasion to talk to Senkuu.  
"Yeah, watch over us and it will do it, even when the Stone World will be just a memory."  
"We'll make it," Gen agreed, and Senkuu passed his free arm around his waist. Gen looked away, feeling the emotions engulf him, but the other boy continued.  
"Of course we'll make it to ten billion percent! Together we can do everything."

Gen's lips curved into a smile and his gaze fell on his own left ring finger. Who knows how it would have been to feel their names engraved in gold against his skin.

Yeah, together they would do anything.


End file.
